


The Church Grim

by lindenmae



Series: love in a churchyard [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Curses, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindenmae/pseuds/lindenmae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a ghost story but it is also a love story.  Some romances are too tragic to survive, but some are strong enough to survive a lifetime and whatever comes after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Church Grim

**Author's Note:**

> Wherein Arthur is a necromancer who doesn't actually do typical necromancery things. Eames is a [Church Grim](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Grim) and a werewolf, and Ariadne is not exactly [Bastet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastet)
> 
> Implicit disturbing imagery

The gates are old and rusted, squeaking like tattle tales on their hinges in the breeze. An owl hoots at him from overhead, an ominous warning from his all- seeing perch safe in the slowly swaying tree branches. The owl sees what Arthur cannot in the deep night. He can’t afford to use a flashlight even now, lest some overzealous neighbor see the glow and play good Samaritan by calling the cops. Not that the housing is that dense this high up in the hills, this close to the abandoned churchyard. Probably those with the stones to make their lives in a place like this wouldn’t be the cop calling type, but Arthur has no interest in testing the waters.

Ariadne easily slips through the space between the iron bars, settling on her haunches in the open and turning to wait patiently, the reflection of the moon against her yellow eyes the only thing Arthur can see of her. He curses her for her size and agility as he knocks the ancient padlock from its chain and pushes the gates open just wide enough that he can squeeze through, leaving the relative safety of the street behind. Fallen leaves and withered bouquets crunch under foot. He tries to step lightly but there’s no avoiding the debris left behind by time’s passing. There’s no groundskeeper here any longer, no path between the graves to rake clear. Arthur can feel the tingle of life not wholly extinguished even with six feet of soil and the soles of his shoes between him and the bodies of the deceased.

Arthur hates cemeteries, not entirely because of the fact that he isn’t exactly welcome in them. There’s nowhere to step that isn’t directly on top of someone’s final resting place, nowhere to go where the spindly fingers of Death’s reach can’t touch him, claw at him, remind him of exactly what he is. But that’s the very reason he’s here now, to do what he does best, and then to get the hell out. Ariadne darts between the headstones, the bare shadow of her body all Arthur can see even though he’s squinting and trying desperately to follow her movements. Without a flashlight, he’s practically blind, but he can’t risk it. He has an idea of the location of the grave he wants, what he can remember from a gray afternoon spent huddled in his trench coat against the drizzle, outside the cemetery gates.

But that’s what Ariadne is for, if she would only slow down and allow Arthur to catch sight of her. She’ll find the grave amongst the labyrinth of markers and lead him to it, so that he doesn’t have to waste his time looking. Just his presence alone should be enough to alert the churchyard’s guardian that sometimes is amiss, and Arthur would rather avoid that encounter.  Now the church bells are ringing and have been since before Arthur snuck in and he knows the Church Grim is ringing them, but he won't stay distracted by that particular enjoyment for long.  The owl hoots again, swooping out of his tree and flying low to the ground, the tip of a feather brushing against Arthur’s cheek. Arthur gasps and stumbles back, his calf hitting a low rising headstone. He lands hard on his ass, his heart beating wildly in his chest.

“ _Shit_!”  He shoves his hand into his coat pocket to make sure the little silver top is still safe and sighs.

Every fiber of his being had screamed that this was a suicide mission, but he wanted to help Dom, he wanted to help _Mal_. Now, of course, he’s regretting that unwavering loyalty, as the night’s chill seeps deep into his bones and the grass stains the seat of his pants. He wraps his fingers over the top of the gravestone and pulls himself up, brushing futilely at his clothes like he can wipe away the feeling of hallowed ground on his skin. He’s less startled than he should be to see the owl perched on an of height grave marker not four feet from him.  Ariadne darts to him, crouching at his feet and growling low in her throat.

  
_Call off your Bastet, Necromancer._

  
Of course it's not a normal owl.

“Ariadne,” Arthur says softly. It accomplishes nothing, but he didn’t expect it to. She’s a cat goddess not a golden retriever. He nudges her away with the heel of his shoe and she hisses, swiping at his ankle with her claws, but ultimately she quits and slinks into the shadows, settling to watch. If she felt truly threatened there would be a lion where the alley cat stood, so Arthur squares his shoulders and stares at the owl with a blank expression. He braces himself to hear the owl’s voice in his mind again, as unused to it now as the very first time an otherworldly being spoke to him without actually speaking.

  
_I do not wish to waste your time, Warlock._

  
Arthur glances around, noticing that the air has gone still. He doesn’t have time to breathe let alone waste on conversing with wildlife.

  
_I can protect you from the Church Grim so long as you agree to assist me._

  
This piques Arthur’s interest. Arthur isn’t scared of many things, but the Church Grim of this graveyard has haunted his dreams since he was a kid.

“Alright, fine,” he whispers, impatient. The owl fluffs his feathers, almost preening.

  
_You are an unusual creature. So much power available to you, yet you don’t access it._

  
“I’m not that strong,” Arthur mutters, closing his fingers around the top, like it could possibly have the power to keep him anchored in reality. This _is_ his reality and it always has been.

  
_And humble.  Impressive._

  
“What do you want from me?”

  
_A favor._

  
Arthur stays silent. Flattery doesn’t appeal to him, but the chance to escape a bad situation unscathed does.

  
_You have the ability to commune with the dead. I do not. I only ask that you relay a long overdue apology and then, if it is meant to be, I shall be at peace._

  
“You said you can protect me from the Grim?”

The owl’s eyes seem to grow in size as he lifts off, his massive wings moving the air around Arthur’s body, chilling him further. His talons are curled tightly around something and Arthur instinctively puts out his hand so the owl can drop the object into his open palm.

“A fang?” Arthur holds the object up to his eye, tries to get a good look at it without the light and the shadow of the massive bird hanging over him. It is definitely a fang, a big one, but just a tooth.

  
_The Grim’s fang. I believe you know how you can use it._

  
Arthur has held plenty of bones, read the entrails of goats, and cast spells using the severed feet of chickens, but the fang feels heavy and wrong in his palm.

“I can only control the dead,” Arthur says with a frown.

The sigh Arthur hears in his mind sounds impatient.

  
_I can assure you that came from the Church Grim’s own grave on the north side of the churchyard._

  
“Right,” Arthur muses, closing his fist around the fang and squeezing until the point of it draws blood, then pocketing it with the top. He can feel the power pulsing from it, but the Grim has to have been dead for hundreds of years if he was ever alive at all. Arthur is just not sure there would be any remains left of him.

The owl rises into the air, gracefully turning on a dime and gaining speed. Arthur has to choke himself off from shouting, still wary of attracting the Grim’s attention, fang or no fang. He begins to run, Ariadne shooting out from the bushes in one long arc, paws barely catching the ground as she lopes after the owl. He still has no idea what it is that the owl wants him to do and as he jogs, he swears he can hear angry rumbling on the wind.

…

Arthur doesn’t have to go far before he figures the first step of the owl’s favor out on his own. He stops short outside of the mausoleum, panting, shins bruised from gravestones he was unable to dodge without light to see them by. The owl lands gracefully on a tree branch above him with a mournful call. The spectre before them _is_ tragic, staring at the moon as if the celestial body has somehow betrayed him, a fist closed tightly over his heart. He’s beautiful, mostly colorless, but Arthur can see the hint of blue that once must have made his eyes nearly glow.

  
_Robert Fischer._

  
The name sounds familiar to him, but Arthur can’t place it with a specific story. The spectre is hardly more than a boy, maybe in his twenties, but that doesn’t mean he was that age when he died. In this case, Arthur thinks it might have been the age at which he suffered most, the age at which whatever event tying him to this plane must have occurred. He’s gaunt and his eyes begin to move wildly when the owl calls, searching for something but not finding it. And that’s when the wailing begins.

“Fucking Hell,” Arthur shouts, clamping his hands over his ears. There’s no way the Grim could hear him over this. The ghost screams and when his voice grows hoarse, his screams become broken sobs, only to strengthen and resume their piercing pitch before Arthur’s ears have a chance to catch up. “What the hell did you do?”

  
_I abandoned him. It was not my intention, but that was what happened nonetheless._

  
When Ariadne begins yowling in chorus with the ghost, Arthur loses it, sucking in the deepest breath he can with his chest still tight from running. “STOP!”

Ariadne looks at him with narrowed eyes, then she collapses onto her side in the grass and proceeds to clean herself. The ghost blinks, his moans not stopping immediately, but at least softening in volume. He looks through Arthur, not quite seeing him.

“I can’t help you if he’s a residual.” But even as he says it, he doesn’t think this spirit is a product of a quartz deposit. There is something too raw about him, too real. Arthur knows instinctively that if he were to reach out, Robert Fischer would be solid for him the way residuals never are. “Why did he start screaming?”

  
_He went mad before he died and I could not let him have his peace. This is my fault. Every night he suffers and every night my guilt shreds my heart anew._

  
Arthur’s downfall is that he is not a bad man, despite his particular skill for raising and commanding armies of the dead - not that he’s ever actually used it for that. Mostly Arthur finds himself in situations like these, helping the unwilling deceased or forcing them if it comes to that. Something about Robert Fischer tugs at the soft, vulnerable spots that Arthur struggles daily to keep buried deep within. He can feel the little boy who’d tried so desperately to raise his father in this very cemetery clawing his way to the surface, the absolute agony in the ghost’s cries bringing damning tears to Arthur’s eyes. He knows he’s going to help this poor soul before he even knows the whole story. It’s still probably better than what brought him here in the first place, knowing the full story and the probability of succeeding and still putting himself in harm’s way for his friend.

“Tell me your story,” he whispers, but the owl hears him and Robert’s wailing begins to echo softly in his mind, drowning out the low growls that are growing ever louder no matter how Arthur tries to ignore them.

  
_I was once a very powerful man. I had wealth and authority and subsequently, I had rivals. My biggest rival was a man named Maurice Fischer and he had a son, a good   man who wanted nothing more than to please his father. But Maurice Fischer could never be pleased and I am afraid I took advantage of that. I fell madly in love with Robert the moment I met him and I loved him truly, I swear it, but I was full of hubris. I manipulated Robert into returning my affections and I wasn’t careful. Robert’s godfather, a man named Browning, found out about us and told Maurice. They plotted to have me killed and Robert committed before he could do any damage to the family business or bring them any shame._

  
Arthur shudders, both at the implications and the absolute sorrow in the owl’s voice.

“When was this?” He has an idea, based on what little of Robert’s clothing he can see that isn’t torn or decayed. He wasn’t treated well in the last years of his life, that much is clear.

  
_1897_

  
“Oh no.” If Robert Fischer was committed to a Victorian asylum then there’s no doubt to the reason for his wailing. Robert Fischer probably died horribly and alone, living in his own filth, and as insane as he was supposed to be when he went in. Arthur can’t bring himself to imagine the other possible tortures someone this attractive must have suffered.

  
_I was shot and Browning thought he had done his job, but I didn’t die. I tried to find Robert, but my wound became infected and to worsen matters I developed consumption. While I was ailing, my lovely Robert hung himself before I could save him. I had gone to Africa, hoping the air would dry out my lungs and while there I sought the help of a witch doctor. I was dying anyway and initially he only gave me drugs that would allow me to see my lovely Robert in my dreams, but I had not learned my lesson and soon it was not enough. I wanted Robert back, you see, and I became so desperate that I was willing to give anything to get him._

  
Arthur understands now. Unfortunately, he’s seen this before.

  
_I gave my soul for his, not understanding the consequences. I don’t know if Robert was at peace before, but what I’ve done to him, I’ve continued his suffering for my own gain and I cannot even reach out to him. I am cursed to this body, my soul locked in here when the shell of my human body was remitted to the ground, and my lovely Robert is cursed to relive the worst moments of his life every night._

  
“You want me to break the curse,” Arthur says, not a question.

  
_I ask you to give him peace. I will gladly live forever in this form if only his suffering can be ended. I entreat you, Necromancer._

  
“And let me guess, once he was dead, he was welcomed into the family wing of the mausoleum.”

It’s always easier when Arthur can get to the ghost’s body. That’s the only way he can force a ghost to abdicate a haunting and barring access to the bones, it helps to have some sort of organic matter blocking it. There’s very little Arthur can do with a block of marble between him and whatever physical object is tying the ghost to this plane. But Arthur already knows that he’s going to try. He sees these things over and over, but this cemetery is special to him and the truly tragic stories never fail to move him. Maybe it’s the appeal of doomed romance to someone who’s never experienced it, or his own history. Sometimes when he sleeps he still sees flashes of that terrible night and his failed raising - images of his father only half formed and soulless, and the Church Grim – sharp teeth and stormy gray eyes, fur so thick and black it swallowed the light. The Grim should have killed him that night. To this day, Arthur isn’t certain why he didn’t.

Arthur walks forward, hands outstretched, trying to feel for any conscious essence emanating from Robert Fischer at all. He can hear the owl rustling his feathers, growing antsy with every step Arthur takes. He’s not sure it’s going to work, that he’s not going to have to wander the mausoleum looking for the name Fischer, that he’s not going to spend his entire night in this cemetery, but when he reaches out his fingers close around Robert’s forearm, the one that’s draped over his chest and Robert stops wailing. Robert’s skin is cold to the touch, and he doesn’t feel quite solid like a living, breathing human would, but Arthur can touch him and Robert seems to register the touch and that’s good enough.

Robert looks at Arthur’s hand where it’s grasping his wrist and then he looks at Arthur’s face and for the first time Arthur feels like Robert actually sees him. Arthur can see the well of sorrow in Robert’s eyes, and worse, he can feel it washing over him from their point of connection.

“You poor man,” he whispers, overcome with the onslaught of emotion. But there is something floating in the waves of sadness that gives him the motivation to push through, a small beacon of hope still fighting for a chance. Arthur smiles and Robert watches him with wonder. “I have something to tell you, Mr. Fischer, a message from a friend.”

Something dawns in Robert’s face then like the sun breaking through a ceiling of storm clouds. “Saito?”

Arthur pauses, unsure because he was never given a name and Robert’s voice is rough as if before he died, he hadn’t used it for proper speech in years, but the owl’s voice comes through, breaking with excitement.

  
_Yes, yes!_

  
“Yes, Robert. Saito.”

“He’s come for me? He’s come to save me?”

“God, I hope so. Robert, Saito wants you to know that he’s sorry. He’s sorry he couldn’t take you from the asylum and that you’ve had to suffer for so long, and… “

  
_Please tell him that my love was true and that it still is._

  
“He really loved you, Robert, well and truly. And he still does. And he always will. But he wants you to let go of whatever it is that’s keeping you here. He wants you to go to the light so that you can finally be happy.”

“Will he be there?”

“I don’t… I don’t know, Robert, but you can’t stay here, waiting for him. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want you to suffer any longer.”

Behind him, the rustling of the owl’s feathers grows louder, more aggressive. Arthur chances a look back and it’s like the owl is molting on fast forward, feathers flying until there’s nothing left. The owl is gone, disappeared into thin air. “What?”

He whips back around when he feels Robert, who hasn’t so much as twitched since Arthur took hold of him, pull out of his grasp. Just a few feet away there is a man, another spectre, but this one brighter and more solid than Robert. He’s older but strikingly handsome and holding his hand out for Robert to take, a small smile on his lips.

“Saito,” Robert breathes, rushing into the man’s arms, their mingled glows bathing Arthur in blue light. “I never stopped hoping.”

Saito kisses Robert, soft and long. “My lovely Robert. Thank you, Necromancer,” he says to Arthur. “Remember the fang.”

_Remember the fang._

Saito and Robert fade away, still gripping tightly to each other and Arthur reaches into his pocket, fingers closing around the top but not the tooth.

“Looking for something, Arthur?”

Ariadne hisses, on her feet and growing in inches as her back arches. The bigger she gets, the harder it is for Arthur to differentiate between her growls and the Grim’s. He turns reluctantly, angry with himself for getting distracted.

“Mal,” he says evenly. She’s perched atop a headstone, swinging her legs, one stiletto dangling precariously from her toe. She has the tooth and he doesn’t know how, but she’s holding it between the pad of her index finger and thumb.

“You have something of mine and I would like it back. I will trade you.”

_The top._

“Why didn’t you take it when you took the fang from my pocket?”

Her normally beautiful face becomes ugly and twisted as she snarls at him. “Because I could not! This _thing_ I could touch, but what’s mine slipped right through my fingers!” Her face softens with thought, but Arthur can’t say that it becomes pretty again. “I believe you might need this, yes Arthur? Were you going to use this to protect yourself?”

“Yes, Mal. Give it back. I’ll return the top, that’s why I’m here, just take me to your grave.”

“No! _No!_ I am not dead! It is you and Dom, you are confused. This is not reality, don’t you see?”

Arthur steps back, shocked, his back hitting the marble wall of the mausoleum, cold against his skin even through the layers of clothes.  
“Mal, what are you talking about? You died. You jumped from the top of a twenty story building.”

“Stop lying, Arthur!”

Arthur feels the cold of the marble seeping all the way into his bones. How could Dom keep this from him? How could he send him into a trap? Mal doesn’t know that she’s dead. She doesn’t know that she’s been haunting her family because she thinks she’s still alive.

“I have to see Dom.”

“Mal, no. You can’t. You have to understand what happened. You have to let him go.” He’s getting desperate. He can feel time running out now that he’s lost the fang. Ariadne is pressing her bulk against his legs but she can’t help him against a malicious spirit. He’s not even sure she can help him against the Grim.

“I don’t have to do anything. I don’t believe you. I don’t know why you’re saying these terrible things to me!”

The growls grow louder, shaking the ground beneath Arthur’s feet. The wind is still but the trees are shaking. The beast is coming for Arthur. He can feel the end weighing heavily against him. He’s out of time.

“Mal, give me the fang. _Please_.”

When Mal regards him again, there are glistening tear tracks staining her skin and her eyes have gone cloudy. She’s not a rational spectre, so few of them ever are, and Arthur can no longer tell where in the churchyard the Grim’s growls are coming from. The echoes of them reverberate off the marble of the mausoleum right in Arthur’s ear. The Grim is coming for him and he hasn’t found Mal’s grave and he no longer believes that simply burying this toy with the rest of her is going to solve anything. Even if he could make it in time, she’s angry and digging up her grave so that he might reach her bones would take him hours alone. The Grim will be on him before he’s even able to strike the ground.

“ _Mal_. Mal honey, what’s happened to you?”

Ariadne lifts her head and raises her ears, the bunching in her shoulders softening. She recognizes Dom and is lowering her guard. Arthur whirls around, the thoughts in his head flying by too fast for him to catch one. Dom is here, clothes wrinkled and missing his jacket, his once handsome face now lined with deep wrinkles. Dom chokes on a sob and reaches out for Mal, ignoring Arthur completely, but she only becomes angrier.

“Stop asking me that, Dominic! There is nothing wrong with me! It is you! You are the sick one. You believe all of this is real, but how can it be? If I were dead, how could you see me? How could you speak to me?”

Arthur wishes she would stop shrieking, or forget about the fang so he can grab it, but her attention is all on Dom now. And Dom shouldn’t be able to see her, not the way Arthur can, because Dom doesn’t have any special abilities, just ardent beliefs. It’s their love that’s doing this to them, the doomed romance that can’t be saved this time. It took Saito the owl well over a hundred years to accept his follies and save the man he loved.  Mal’s been dead less than ten. Her’s was the last body buried in this cemetery before Dom, in a fit of misguided despair, bought the land and let it fall into disrepair and people forgot about it except to spread rumors of it being haunted, which weren’t quite rumors after all. Mal and Dom allowed themselves to become consumed by their love for one another when they were alive and it’s that bond that is preventing them from letting go now.

“What are you doing here, Dom?” Arthur hisses, keeping his voice low and praying it’s enough to keep the Grim from finding him right away.

“I couldn’t let you… I had to say goodbye. I couldn’t let you take her away from me without saying goodbye.”

“That’s what you were supposed to do at the funeral, Dom! That’s why people have them! You’ve allowed her to haunt you for years, to terrify your children, and you still need time to say goodbye?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Arthur! You’ve never been in love! You’ve never had a goodbye this difficult to say!”

Arthur’s own growl is building low in his throat, but he holds himself in check. He understands that Dom is in an emotional place right now, has been for the better part of the last decade, and Dom doesn’t understand Arthur’s abilities, not truly. He can study them all he wants but he doesn’t have the scars on his childhood that come from accidentally raising the dog that used to guard him while he slept or the line of hamsters that came after. He can never understand what it is to lose the only person who ever truly cared and possess the power to bring that person back but not the skill or the knowledge, because he was still just a child and that person died too soon to teach him. Dom doesn’t understand Arthur’s pain, the dull and constant ache of seeing the dead everywhere he goes and not always being able to help them. This is why most necromancers go a little mad, Arthur knows. It is so much easier to think of the dead as mindless corpses to be controlled like puppets than as the people they once were and will never be again.

“Keep your voice down, Dom.” Dom ignores him, reaching out for Mal only for his hands to pass right through her.

She lets loose a piercing scream that shakes the colored panes of the mausoleum’s stained glass windows and Arthur knows he’s doomed. Robert’s wailing was a nightly occurrence, but Mal is not locked to this land and this type of disturbance is not normal. He sees Ariadne revert to her former stance, muscles bunched and the massive fangs of her lion form bared in the direction facing away from Dom and Mal. The Grim is no longer coming for him. The Grim is here. Arthur pulls the top from his pocket and tosses it between Dom and Mal, distracting the spirit of his former friend for long enough to loosen her grip on the fang. Arthur dives for it, knocking it from her grasp just as he feels hot breath on his face and the pain of teeth closing tightly around his neck.

…

Arthur opens his eyes slowly, instinct telling him to stay as still as possible in case his neck is broken or the predator that nearly killed him is still around. He’s not flooded with relief to still be alive. This is the second time this Grim has spared him, but he can’t know that it isn’t part of some sick game the spirit is playing with him. It is a few degrees warmer in this place than it was with his back pressed up to the mausoleum. He wants to curl into himself and enjoy it, fall back into unconsciousness, but he knows he can’t. He needs to process his surroundings and find a way to escape before the Grim finishes the job it’s supposed to do.

“You’re in the church proper. No bones in here, boy. Nothing you can control.”

The voice echoes against the beams of the ceiling, bouncing all around Arthur and wrapping him up in its soft rumble. It’s a nice voice.

“And you’re hardly injured, just a few nicks here and there. No damage to any major arteries so you can quit playing opossum.”

Arthur groans softly and pushes himself off the floor until he’s sitting and facing the church’s altar. Depictions of Christ have always made him nervous, probably because of folklore’s general acceptance that he’s a scion of Satan. He doesn’t appreciate statues of the Christian savior passing judgment on him for an affliction he was born with and has, for the most part, chosen to suppress his entire life. He looks at the ground instead, away from the prying, painted eyes of Jesus.

“How did I get here? What happened to the Grim? Why am I still alive?”

“You’re a right inquisitive one, aren’t you? Well, at least your questions are simple enough. You were brought here. I _am_ the Grim and you’re alive because I haven’t killed you yet. Very nice trick with the Bastet there. Nearly caught me off guard, she did. Would have helped you out to have had her the last time.”

Arthur bristles, wishing he’d brought his gun from the car. Not that it would do any good, but he _feels_ safer with it in hand. He didn’t really expect the Grim to remember him. To be honest, he hadn’t expected the Grim to have the mental capacity to remember, but he hadn’t thought it would have the emotional capacity to let a terrified little boy get away so many years ago either. He takes a deep breath and braces his hands against the pews on either side of his body and pushes himself up. He’s a little woozy on his feet, but he stays standing with sheer will.

“Of course your kitty-cat couldn’t save you, just distract me.” There is a pregnant pause, heavy with the unknown, and then the voice is back at Arthur’s ear, the Grim’s breath hot against his skin. “Why did you come back here, little sorcerer? I saw you outside the gates when that woman was laid into the ground. You _know_ better.”

“I had to try and help her,” he finally grits out between clenched teeth. He can feel the warmth of the Grim’s body against his back and he’s confused.

“I won’t let you raise the dead on my land, Necromancer. I believe you know that already.”

“I wasn’t going to raise her. I was going to force her to leave this plane, but she doesn’t know she’s dead and her husband won’t let her go.”

“How very noble. A zombie maker with a heart of gold.”

Arthur turns sharply and quickly enough to force the Grim back a few steps. He’s not expecting what he finds when he comes face to face with the guardian here in the church. Perhaps he was expecting the beast of his memories on two legs or something smaller and infinitely more grotesque like the legends claim.

“Expecting something more along the lines of a gnome or a brownie were you? Maybe the kind of terrifying Sidhe that your nightmares consist of? Sorry to disappoint.”

But Arthur’s far from disappointed. Mostly, he’s intrigued and defensive. It’s easier to believe he might have a chance of living through this when he’s staring down another human being not even taller than he is.

“You’re a man,” he murmurs, reaching out a hand but letting it fall away before his fingers can brush the exposed tattoos on the Grim’s arm.

“It's easier this way to get through to little boys that ignore my warnings and think, because they are older and have grown handsome, I will hesitate to do my duty to this church.” The Grim’s voice has lowered practically to a growl now, but something in his gray eyes seems almost playful, the arch of his brow or the slight quirk of his full lips.

“But you did hesitate. I’m still alive and uninjured.”

The Grim scowls. Arthur still doesn’t understand how he’s a man when he should be a dog, but he’s a beautiful man, no taller than Arthur, but broad where Arthur is lithe, muscled where Arthur is slim, tanned and tattooed where Arthur is pale and unmarked. He bears the marks of a Celtic warrior and Arthur feels a pang of regret for how long this man has been dead and reduced to patrolling this land day after day, night after night.

“There is something about you that gives me pause. At first I thought I was only taking pity on a wild-eyed child that I had hoped to never see again, but it seems I was wrong.”

“I’m surprised you remember me,” Arthur says because he doesn’t know what else to say and it’s the truth. It’s been twenty years since he set foot in this churchyard, but the Grim noticed him even outside the gates. Arthur is truly terrified by that at the same time that he’s also a little thrilled.

“Unfortunately, I never stop thinking about you. So, of course I remember you. I’ve been waiting for you to come back.” The Grim really does look displeased by this, his brows furrowed together over his stormy eyes.

Arthur finds himself laughing at the discordance of the Grim’s declaration in contrast with his expression. It’s a mixture of bemusement and the adrenaline still coursing freely through him. His fear is morphing into an insane euphoria that he can’t seem to get a grip on. This only serves to frustrate the Grim, who is against Arthur and snarling in two easy strides, calloused fingers gripping Arthur’s chin and pressing hard into the skin.

And what Arthur says, drunk on adrenaline, is, “you’re so warm.” Because spirits are always cold or no temperature at all.

“I was buried _alive_. Not quite the same as the rest of these unfortunate souls, already cold when they entered the ground. Wasn’t exactly _laid to rest_ was I?” His breath is hot against Arthur’s lips, and that small detail is enough to turn everything Arthur thought he knew on its head. Spirits don’t _breathe_. Despite all of his research, all of his attempts to understand what little knowledge his father was able to pass down, all of his time spent with Dom studying the occult, Arthur realizes he doesn’t understand the intricacies of death at all.

“What are you?”

The Grim smells of the earth but also of the incense that used to burn at the church’s altar. He smells like rain and like fire and nothing like death.

“The Church Grim.”

“What _were_ you,” Arthur amends, because this spirit is so much more than the black dog Arthur expected him to be.

The Grim’s expression softens and he removes his hand from Arthur’s jaw, caressing Arthur’s skin as he pulls his fingers away. They linger for no more than a moment on his lips and Arthur can feel the tingle there even once the Grim’s hand is back by his side.

“A Lycan,” he says despondently. “A man and a wolf, and the best of both if I might say so. But I was also a thief and I killed livestock to feed myself when I couldn’t suppress my canine form. And when the villagers built their first church it just so happened to coincide with my unfortunate capture and death sentence. You can’t blame the villagers for thinking a werewolf would make a particularly powerful Church Grim. Especially not when they were right.”

Arthur can’t help the growl he lets out. This isn’t right. He _knows_ this isn’t right. What insanity would drive a people to believe a werewolf would make a good guardian for a church? And that they could subject another human being to such a fate, no matter his afflictions or abilities. The Grim must see the horror in Arthur’s eyes, because he turns away, massive shoulders slumping while he seems to collect himself. When he turns back, all traces of his earlier sadness are gone and have been replaced by intense curiosity.

“My fate upsets you?”

“It’s unusual.” Arthur fights to keep his emotions out of his voice. He understands now why the Grim let him go when he first encountered it as a child. He was afraid and alone and in possession of powers he couldn’t hope to understand and the Grim felt _pity_ for him, pity and possibly empathy, because he was once a human with a frightening side himself.

“Many things are. You, for example.” The Grim comes close again; invading Arthur’s space and Arthur only becomes aware of the chill again once he can feel the Grim’s heat against his body. There’s a moment of stuttered breath when Arthur’s heart forgets to beat and then the Grim is kissing him and Arthur is kissing back.

When he pulls away, the Grim is eyeing him fondly, his eyes crinkling in the corners in such a way that Arthur can’t be sure how he was ever afraid.

“Tell me your name so that I might stop thinking of you as the scared little sorcerer.”

“Arthur.”

“Arrrthur,” he practically purrs. “You don’t look like a bear, but I bet you’re as thick-skinned and hard-headed as one. You’re all claws and teeth beneath this soft exterior, aren’t you?”

“I’m not soft,” Arthur says. “And your name? So that I can stop calling you the thing of my nightmares.”

The Grim chuckles and a burst of warmth blooms in Arthur’s chest. “I haven’t a name any longer, but when I was alive it was Eames.”

“Eames.” Arthur fits his palm against Eames’s cheek and this time initiates the kiss, almost feeding off the warmth radiating from Eames’s skin. He can almost forget that Eames is technically dead and only existing in a kind of limbo between worlds, not a ghost but not a living being either. All of his life, Arthur has felt cold and ostracized, not quite a functioning part of society, but with his body fitted against Eames, he feels right, like his world has been listing in the wrong direction for twenty years and someone has finally righted it.

They’re interrupted by a furious scratching at the old oak doors of the church followed by Ariadne’s frustrated roar.

“Ariadne,” Arthur gasps, remembering what he was doing before this, the whole reason he’d come.

“The Bastet,” Eames muses, arms still wrapped tightly around Arthur’s waist. “Tenacious thing for a feline.”

Arthur looks at Eames, palm still cupping the side of his face, and implores him with a look. “You have to let me help Dom and Mal. I swear I’m not going to raise her, even if that’s what Dom wants. She needs to leave this world before she hurts somebody. She’s well on her way to becoming a poltergeist and I loved her too much when she was alive to let that happen. She was a good person, she doesn’t deserve this kind of afterlife.”

“And this Dom? What does he deserve?”

“Dom is insane and he’s selfish, but he doesn’t deserve this either. There are children,” Arthur whispers as Eames brushes their lips together.

“You _are_ unusual, darling.”  With that the doors fly open and a wind Arthur hadn’t heard through the walls rushes into the room and whistles outside.

Ariadne growls at Eames and gives one last roar before bounding back into the storm, expecting Arthur to be on her tail.

“Thank you,” Arthur says stoically with one last touch to Eames’s skin, before racing out into the storm after the cat.

What he finds brings all of the terror rushing back, but it is immediately replaced with nearly thirty years of anger that Arthur has refused to let himself feel. Anger at Mal for killing herself and then refusing to see the light, hurting everything she ever loved as she paid her penance without even realizing it, and at Dom for letting her do it and for lying to Arthur and for expecting Arthur to put himself in harm’s way when Dom can’t keep himself out of it. He’s angry at his father for dying when Arthur was too young to understand the world and how it works and too young to control these terrible powers that he shouldn’t even have, and he’s angry at the world for cursing him and for cursing Eames, and for Robert and Saito and everyone else who ends up suffering long past their due.

Mal doesn’t seem to realize that she’s floating, the wind whipping around her pale body, picking up debris only to hurl it at the ground around Dom’s huddled and pleading form. Dom has the top and he’s clutching it and sobbing and rocking back and forth, insisting that he can let go.

“If I am dead,” she screams, “then why are you still alive? Why have you not come to me, Dom? You have to join me. You promised we would always be together. _You promised_!”

Arthur sees the shadow of the Grim, of _Eames_ , pass in his peripheral and follows the movement with his eyes, his gaze catching on the inscription of the headstone next to him. This is Mal’s grave that he’s standing on. Arthur has never had much faith in his own strength, but there is no time to dig six feet into the soil to get to Mal’s coffin. Arthur takes a deep breath and falls to his knees, placing his hands flat against the ground and digging his fingers into the sod. He concentrates on breathing, on feeling the blood flow through his arms, into each finger and back out again. He concentrates on the energy of the earth, on the feeling of his own essence seeping from his fingertips like tentacles, pushing through the dirt, curling and wriggling and searching. Arthur concentrates until the sound of the storm dies away and he can hear nothing but the steady thump of his own heartbeat in his ears, until he touches Mal’s body and then he _pulls_.

Mal jerks in the air and falls, confusion and fear melding in her expression. Dom hovers over her, whispering words that Arthur can’t hear as ghostly tears slip down her cheeks. Arthur lets go, panting, when a presence breaks through his mental block. Ariadne is pacing behind Dom, tail twitching in irritation, so it leaves Eames. Once upon a time this moment would have topped the list of Arthur’s worst fears, but now he feels calm as he watches Dom finally say goodbye to the woman he loved so much. Arthur doesn’t expect Dom to get up immediately after Mal finally fades away and he waits patiently while Dom cries into Ariadne’s fur.

He jerks in surprise when he feels cool fingers stroke his cheek, but then Mal is sitting cross legged in front of him, looking at her own headstone. “You are a good friend, Arthur. I do not know if I made that clear to you before.”

“You did, Mal,” he whispers, choking up. “That’s why I had to do this. You understand don’t you?”

She smiles softly, tilting her head as she looks at him in the same way she used to do when alive. “I do understand, mon petit socier. Finally I do.”

Then Mal notices Eames and her gaze is wistfully sad. She kisses Arthur’s cheek with cold lips and begins to fade and Arthur barely hears her telling him that it’s okay to be selfish sometimes.

“You’ll be leaving now, I assume. Your friend still has a ways to go before he’ll be in his right head.” Arthur isn’t looking at Eames, but he doesn’t think he’s imagining the regret in his voice.

“I could free you from this, you know.” He feels Eames knuckles against his cheek, but he still refuses to look.

“Where else is there for me to go, darling? The churches have been torn down and rebuilt, but the graves and I have been here for nigh on a thousand years. There’s nothing else for me.”

“You’re wrong,” Arthur says firmly and when he finally looks at Eames, his eyes are dry. “You just need to dream bigger than this churchyard, that’s all.”

Eames doesn’t say anything to that and he doesn’t stop Arthur from standing once Dom starts to struggle to his feet. But he reaches out and tangles his fingers with Arthur’s for a fleeting second, a flicker of hope brightening his eyes.

“Perhaps you’ll come back? Now that we understand each other?”

Arthur smiles, a true smile, the kind that makes his cheeks dimple and Eames brightens. “You can count on that, Mr. Eames.”

…

Arthur glances back as he slips through the gates, Dom and Ariadne already waiting at his car. He can just make out the smoky shadow of a massive black wolf silhouetted against the night sky. Arthur jams his hands into his coat pockets to keep himself from waving, and a secretive smile curves his lips when his fingers curl around a small object. He pulls out his hand and regards the fang in his palm. He concentrates on it and the wolf howls behind him. Arthur finds himself whistling as he unlocks the car and slides behind the wheel, plans already forming in his head.

…  
optional happy ending  
...

The gates are still old and rusted and Arthur slips through them as quietly as possible. He fingers the fang on its leather thong around his neck and shifts the shovel on his shoulder, listening to the bells ring as he trudges to the north side of the churchyard. He’s spent a year studying every inch of this land, every blueprint, every mention of it in every text, all to find a single unmarked grave, and tonight he’s going to dig it up. He hears the low growls on the wind that once would have made him fear for his life, but now they only make him smile as he walks determinedly on. Mal told him to be selfish and tonight he’s going to be. Every sorcerer needs a familiar and since Ariadne has chosen to permanently attach herself to Dom, Arthur thinks an undead werewolf spirit will be the perfect replacement. There are no more ghosts in this cemetery and no more need for a guardian, not when Arthur can see his chance to finally have a, hopefully not so doomed, romance of his own.

“What is it you think you’re doing, darling?” Eames finally shows when Arthur starts to dig, visibly upset at his grave being disturbed. Even without the sharp expression on Eames’s face, Arthur would know that he’s in the right spot. This part of the churchyard is positively thrumming with energy.

“From what I understood, you didn’t want me to release you from being the Church Grim because you think it’s the only place you belong, right?”

“That is absolutely _not_ what I said-“

“You’ve done your duty by this churchyard, Eames. There’s somewhere better you belong now.” Arthur never stops digging as he speaks, blisters forming on his palms, but he doesn’t care.

“And where is that, then?”

Finally Arthur takes a break, huffing a satisfied breath and wiping the perspiration from his forehead as he turns to face the only creature that has ever truly scared him, in more ways than one now.

“With me,” he says, heart barely daring to beat once Eames sees the fang around his neck.

It feels like an eternity that Eames’s expression remains unreadable. “You’re not going to try to control me with that, are you?”

“Of course not,” Arthur says, affronted, confidence in his plan faltering. But then Eames’s eyes brighten and Arthur smiles wide with relief.

“I think I might like it with you,” Eames says, running his fingertips over his own tooth around Arthur’s neck, then curling his fingers around the leather thong and using it to tug Arthur to him. “My little sorcerer.”

Arthur lets Eames kiss him breathless. He has all night to finish digging and the rest of his life and whatever comes after to give Eames a proper place to belong.

  
  _FIN_


End file.
